Neverland
by Pied Piper
Summary: They are the other Chosen. [Motomiya Jun: They're just not that kind of family.]
1. Yagami Susumu

**Neverland**

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**Author's Note**: In honor of the announcement made for the 15th anniversary (!), please enjoy this short series exploring, quite simply, what it means to be the parent of a Chosen (featuring the occasional other relative, too). I will be taking some liberties with the everyone-has-one (Digimon, that is) conclusion of the second series, and some studies will jump time and space as the story requires. Also, please be forewarned that this is gonna have a lot of feelings, because I have a lot of feelings to feel right now. Lastly, I'll do my best to finish my other in-progress stories before the new series kicks off in the spring. Thanks for reading!

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**Summary**: They are the other Chosen. [Yagami Susumu: He considers the idea of children a great and terrible punishment.]

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He considers the idea of children a great and terrible punishment.

_Here_, you say to the world. _Take me and cut me open, make me bleed out all the ways to love I never knew were there, and in return I will love in ways I never have before_.

_Fine_, says the world. _I will take you and I will cut you open, and I will make you bleed a love indescribable, and in return I will swallow it for my own_.

Turning away darkly, Susumu leaves the crowd behind and heads to the drinks table. His wife has set it next to the balcony doors, and he is drawn to it, to freedom, swiftly lifting a bottle of beer from the iced cooler as he steps outside. It's unusually warm for an early spring evening, but he feels inexplicably cold, shivering and wishing. Prying off the twist top, he brings the bottle to his lips just as another appears next to it, clinking against its neck.

His son (_his, his, his_) has become so tall, he can look him in the eye now. Even so, Susumu feels he has always been looking up to see him, to find him. But Taichi only moves faster and farther away, in the quickest slow motion, hurtling into unreachable infinities each time the world—_that_ world—calls. He lives a life that Susumu does not understand. The evidence of his burden is there in shoulders that curve with a strained slouch, in the exhausted hitch before each breath, but in a blink of an eye the tiredness is gone. Now he smiles, toothy and cheeky, straightens his back, and says, "Happy birthday, Dad," with a contented glint in golden brown eyes.

"Uh-huh," he grunts rather than answer, irritable. "When did you start drinking?" he frowns.

Taichi leans against the railing, languid and relaxed. "Do you want the answer or the truth?" A smirk curls over a mouth incapable of keeping secrets, and Susumu wonders how the boy (_no; a man_) intends to maneuver the political arena of two worlds with such a glass face. The thought makes his stomach churn, and his scowl darkens.

He masks the grimace with exasperated fatherly disapproval, the one he has exclusively copyrighted for his eldest child. The years-old Mystery of the Vanishing Beer Cans—disappearances that ceased once his son left for university (_why is he always leaving_)—comes to an end with a sigh. "I thought I was losing my mind."

"Nah. Just your memory." He wipes his mouth after an eager swig. "Anyway, Yamato and I replaced each one we took. Well, eventually. Okay, not all of them…ah, at least, we meant to. You know, when we could legally buy them." A wink accompanies the explanation in lieu of an apology, shrugging away youthful mistakes as easily as he once made them.

This is not comforting.

He growls, "So that's why he was always over."

Another large gulp. Susumu shakes his head at the way the man (_no; a boy_) chugs the beer without tasting it. If he had been the one to buy his son's first drink, he would have taught him how to nurse it in the proper manner. His heart clenches in regret (_I should have, I should have, I should have_).

"Eh, if we wanted free liquor, it would've been easier just to go to his dad's place."

"It was not free just because you did not buy it."

But Taichi's ears are so used to tuning out parental admonishments that they are no longer able to detect the frequency.

He continues matter-of-factly, "You know how his dad was always gone. He'd never let me admit this, but I could tell he used to come over because he liked that you were there."

Susumu stops before he can even take the first sip. He lowers his arm. "No, I wasn't." Long hours at the office flood his mind's eye, stumbling back from work parties well after they were asleep. (_Kids remember everything the wrong way._) "Your mother stayed home, not me." It's a whisper, a breath, a sigh, remorse wrapped up in frustration and tied with despair. If only he had come home earlier, come home sooner, come home. If only he had woken up first that night in Hikarigoaka, had known what to do, had done it better. If only he had been there, at the start, to see the path that would take them from him, instead of seeing it only after they were long gone (_they were only children; they are my only_).

"I don't mean who was home," says Taichi, resting the mouth of the bottle on his bottom lip. "I meant—you were there. That's what you—every time, Dad. You were there."

Susumu is stubborn; it's how Taichi learned to be, too. "Hiroaki was the one was there; he was always working or yelling after you kids about something, but at least he helped. He did things. You and your friends should be more grateful to him for doing so much. And it wasn't easy for him to be gone that often, too, you know. It never is for us. You tell Yamato that. "

"Dad."

The lecture stops. He does not want to talk about this anymore, ever again. Let them act like that's how things happened; he will hold onto what did. He will let it sink on his chest, pressing like a lost childhood he never got to share. He will let it swelter, let it sting, let it rage and burn for every time the call came for them, again and again, and the only thing he had ever been allowed to do was to let children fight the battle for him (_they are only children; they were my only_). He is the father. He is the leader. He should have been the one to show his children new worlds, new dreams, new futures. (_Can't I even have that much?_)

Taichi speaks quietly, "I know what he did, Dad. I meant what you did."

He laughs and swivels away, tongue arrested by the growing lump in his throat.

"Where are you going?"

"Inside," he says, to another year of not being enough. _Back_ is where he wants to go. He'll go back to that convention center, he'll go back to that bridge, he'll go back to that apartment. He'll go back and he'll do more things right, do more things better, _do more_—

Suddenly, Taichi's hand is on his shoulder, bringing him to a standstill. His voice is soft, lifting Susumu out of thoughts he does not know how to leave behind. "Dad, you made him feel like he was family. That's why Yamato and Koushiro and everyone used to come over. You took care of all of us."

"That was your mother, and Natsuko, and Toshiko—,"

"That was _you_." Taichi stares, confused. "You made everything normal."

It's a word that does not apply to their family. The sound is foreign to both, and they appraise one another, each trying to understand the man before him. Taichi breaks his gaze first, ruddy tanned cheeks coloring slightly from the sudden bout of honesty. "I know it wasn't easy for you, just watching and not doing. It was hard for all of you. But having you there when things..." He cannot continue, faltering. Hands tug nervously at thick unruly hair, and the boy mutters, "Where else do you think my courage comes from?"

Susumu's first reaction is to shake him. Courage? In this?

"That comes from you. It's who you are."

He has heard the stories, seen the markings of his Crest. It was Courage that chose Taichi that August, or maybe even years before. Susumu knows this, and at first his chest swells with wonder and pride—but then it breaks again, chaining him to an eternally separate life, condemning him to the state of left behind.

Taichi's next words still the beating of his aching heart: "If who I am is Courage, then who I am is yours." Wild, wide brown eyes ask how he could still not know. (_Parents remember everything the wrong way._) Then he shrugs, suddenly, cheeky once more, "For better or for worse, anyway."

The better he understands, he craves even still. The worse is not fair and has never been. To hear Hiroaki speak of it, the children were made to save worlds. But that's the trouble with it all. You are not made by yourself, of yourself; you are everything that came before and during and after; you are love unrealized, a bargain with providence, a gamble against another fate. You are not your own. You are not alone. So how could a destiny that chose you not also choose everyone who made you, and who is made of you, too?

This is what he wants to say, wants them all to understand. Instead, Susumu brings his drink to his lips at last, tasting it slowly. "For better or for worse," he promises, and his soul declares it, makes it known, shouts it out into the void and makes sure the world—_that_ world—hears him, too.

Taichi finishes his beer with a long sigh, arms stretched over his head. "I'll have to bring you one day," he says.

The announcement is unexpected, and Susumu instinctively opens his mouth to decline. Then he pauses. "You want to?"

"I've always wanted to," he says easily. "I think you'd like it there. It's beautiful, Dad."

Susumu hesitates. "I've been curious about some of the stories."

"They're curious about you, too."

He is not sure what to make of this, either. "Me?"

"Of course." Taichi winks, boasting, "Everyone wants to know about the man who raised me."

Susumu cannot help the smirk that pulls on his mouth, mirroring his son's own. Maybe that's where he gets that, too. "And offer condolences, I suppose."

His son squawks indignantly, sputtering, but Susumu only laughs and pulls him into an embrace, smothering any protest.

Behind them, the birthday song begins as his wife reveals the cake she has made. She calls for him, for the both of them, but Susumu lingers, wrapping his arms around the greatest evidence of his own Courage. For one more moment, he will hold the boy closer, further, tighter, longer, always. "I'll go anywhere for you," he says, and Taichi stops struggling, surrendering to a love indescribable.


	2. Motomiya Jun

**Neverland**

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**Author's Note**: In terms of 01/02 siblings—for me, at least, and I know I'm the unpopular opinion—Taichi & Hikari and Yamato & Takeru are perfect, but Jun & Daisuke are _insanely_ perfect. Thanks for reading.

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**Summary**: They are the other Chosen. [Motomiya Jun: They're just not that kind of family.]

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He's a stupid little one.

His head is large, and fat, with fuzzy curls she's not supposed to pull.

His skin is dark, and soft, with dimples she's not supposed to poke.

His nose is small, and round, with a point she's not supposed to pinch.

She's not supposed to do anything to him, apparently, but she does it anyway, and each time Mama catches her pulling and poking and pinching the stupid boring baby, she has to stay five more minutes against the wall, face pressed into the corner, and seethe, because no one understands that it's all his fault.

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He's a funny little one.

She pitches him across the floor and tosses him about the room to make him break, but all he does is tuck and roll and shriek with delight, smashing her boiling resentment into smaller and smaller pieces each time he comes toddling back for more and more and more.

She buries him under the sand and covers him with dirt to make him disappear, but all he does is flail and wiggle and laugh with pleasure, pulling apart the iron walls of her heart and crawling deeper into the wide open space inside no matter how much she struggles to shut him out.

She braids his hair and paints his nails to make him cry, but all he does is yawn and snuggle and curl his pudgy fingers around her thumb, latching onto ties that bind thicker than fate, stronger than destiny, greater than providence.

She tries everything she can to make him hate her so she can hate him, too, but it never works, and each time Papa finds her trying to fold him into the washing machine or leave him in the recycling bin or take him out with the trash, she has to eat her dinner cold with no pudding, alone in her room, and fume, because no one understands that it's all his fault.

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He's a stubborn little one.

He yanks her hair and calls her names and ruins all her plans, then saves his money to buy the red rhinestone earrings she's been dying to have for weeks and weeks.

He makes fun of her bushy hair and pours grape juice over her clothes and tells her friends she still wets the bed, then slams his fist into the nose of the first boy who breaks her heart.

He pushes her off the swing and eats all her favorite biscuits and hides her schoolbooks before exams, then drags his futon next to hers whenever she fears the thunder getting too loud and the darkness getting too strong and loneliness getting too wide.

He won't say sorry and she won't forgive him, and he never will and she never does.

Instead, she rails against this curse of a pest and this waste of a space and this brute of a boy, because no one understands that she doesn't know how else to say sorryandthankyouandpleasebehappy, and it's all his fault.

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He's a brave little one.

She sees him hurled into oblivion and flung into chaos, chosen for a purpose far beyond the limits of her own understanding, facing dangers she cannot fathom and futures she cannot know, for a reason she cannot comprehend and a path she cannot follow.

So she waits with the rest each time that they call because he is hers first and only and always, and she will be kinder and nicer and better if they promise not to hurt him, not to break him, not to lose him, not to keep him, not to take him.

And even then, each time that world gives him back, unscathed and unshaken, she still pulls and pokes and pinches, and she still seethes and fumes and rails, because he still doesn't understand her and she wonders if she knows him, but someday he might and somehow she will.

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He's her little one, and she loves him, but she'll never say so. They're just not that kind of family.


End file.
